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The Cornell Note Taking System

lsc.cornell.edu

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Re: The Cornell Note Taking System

#41

Post by vincent-manis »

This, like any system, works better for some individuals than others, depending on their learning style. I liked the presentation here, basically “try this, you may find it valuable”. I'm sure that some people found it useless, others very useful. When I was teaching, students would sometimes ask me for permission to record the lectures. I always said yes, because I know that some students learn best aurally, and find note-taking interferes with their learning style.

Teachers (or school systems) that mandate this system, and, even worse, GRADE NOTEBOOKS completely misunderstand the point of it. In K-12, one of the goals is to help students become effective learners, which involves students identifying the tools that help them learn best.

I really like the SUMMARY section, asking the student to synthesize some kind of big picture. I always said that in a 50-minute university class, you can thoroughly explain one sentence and its ramifications. The space given for SUMMARY really asks the student to identify that sentence. And it also gives room for a really good question from a student: “Hey, teach, I can't figure out the summary for that class on recursion, can you help me?”, though, to be fair, no student ever called me “teach”.

Re: The Cornell Note Taking System

#42

Post by dunefox »

jszymborski wrote: post #13
Veen wrote: post #11

The main thing I learned watching these videos is that Cornell students—or Americans more generally, perhaps—hold pens in a way that seems unusual to me. For example, with the thumb wrapped round the pen or with it gripped by the tips of all five fingers. Is that normal in the US? In the UK, I was taught to grip the pen with my thumb and forefinger tips and rest it on my middle finger. Most people I see writing hold…

I'm unsure about these descriptions but in Canada/Qc this is the way I was taught to hold a pencil: https://www.fergusonvalues.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Ha...

Which is the correct way.

Re: The Cornell Note Taking System

#43

Post by [deleted] »

quartesixte wrote: post #9

Goodness gracious. There is an entire generation of school children (at the very least in my locality) who were forced to use an incredibly poor implementation of this method by teachers who barely understood the intent themselves. On which we were punished for not doing correctly. The biggest gripe I had about this method was that the lessons in middle school and high school never had enough information density to m…

[deleted]

Re: The Cornell Note Taking System

#44

Post by [deleted] »

eBombzor wrote: post #25

You know there's this going where people are starting to realize that extensive/fancy note taking is a gigantic waste of time. The only thing it needs to do is to offload cognitive thinking onto something external while you're learning so you can hold ideas. Most learning comes from recalling, not having beautiful notes.

[deleted]

Re: The Cornell Note Taking System

#45

Post by baq »

chazeon wrote: post #26

On a personal note, I found any form of notetaking is distraction for me to grasping information... I really don't understand how someone could take good note while also listen... I found this only when I starting my PhD. I hope I know this sooner. Also, notetaking in any designed system is worse than a blank piece of paper for me. Not sure if any one would agree.

that's right there in the article:

> Research shows that taking notes by hand is more effective than typing on a laptop.

IMHO this is an understatement made on purpose to stay as neutral in tone as possible and not offend anyone who disagrees. pen and paper note taking improves retention so much you shouldn't need the notes after you take them (well, unless you're writing down equations or whatever...)

Re: The Cornell Note Taking System

#46

Post by baq »

twojacobtwo wrote: post #31
maphew wrote: post #24

The rash of "no way" responses makes me wonder: what note taking system(s) have you encountered that actually work for you? (And why, if known.) From someone who episodically takes notes in haphazard fashion and very rarely looks at them again, and thinks he's probably woefully working harder than he should as a result.

Though maybe not very useful directly for taking lecture notes, I like the Feynman technique for self driven learning. It's pretty sparse for layout and specific details, but the guiding principles are simple and keep you moving in the right direction: summarize your current understanding of a discrete topic in simple terms, iterate toward further simplicity as you learn more. ______ Step One: Choose the Concept You…

he is on record saying you can't really explain magnetism to a child ;)

https://youtu.be/MO0r930Sn_8

Re: The Cornell Note Taking System

#47

Post by blahedo »

Ooooooh I have a burning hate for this system (the dislike is rational, the burning part is not entirely rational but justified). Way back in high school my AP history teacher not only taught us this (cool, that's part of his job) and checked that we were able to do it (reasonable), he required us to submit notes in this exact format, for every reading, all year, which he graded. After I determined that my comprehension and retention rate went down as a result of having to constantly interrupt my reading to follow the format, I stopped doing them and he got big mad that I was still doing great on all his tests using my own strategies. With a >90% test average he still gave me a C– in the class and tried to pressure me to cancel my AP exam and take a partial refund for it. I got a 4. (For the non-US folks: that's a 4 on a 5-point scale and generally means it will count for university credit, as indeed it did for me.)

When I visited on a schoolday the next year, he saw me in the hallway and had the tremendous arrogance to ask me to pop into his class and tell them how much the notes helped. I was too unconfident at that point to do more than politely decline to do so, but modern me probably would have accepted the offer and then told the class exactly what I thought of them....

If they work for you, great! But no system is perfect for everyone. Assess what works for you, jettison the stuff that's wasting your time.

ETA: This episode did teach me something very important, which was that as a teacher, when I'm teaching techniques if I think it's important enough I can require students to learn the technique and assess whether they are able to do it, but then I let them decide whether to use it in general or find something better.

Re: The Cornell Note Taking System

#49

Post by EduardoBautista »

dunefox wrote: post #42
jszymborski wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure about these descriptions but in Canada/Qc this is the way I was taught to hold a pencil: https://www.fergusonvalues.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Ha...

Which is the correct way.

I have had terrible handwriting all my life. Could it be because I have been holding it wrong all this time?

I hold by the tip of my index finger, middle finger, and thumb.

Re: The Cornell Note Taking System

#50

Post by motoboi »

I believe note systems are great! The only problem, and I see people talking too little about it, is that you need to create your own, for it to be effective.

It's like trying to use spaced repetition with cards made by someone else, you loose 80% of the benefit.

Creating, perfecting (and using) your own note system is what makes you a learning machine, as it let's you understand how your mind process and learn information. Your system is a reflex of your own mind, and exposes (reasonably) to you how the inner words.

Very hard, thought, as you need a very high level of meta thought. Hence a lot of people see someone's else system and try to use it, benefit poorly from it.

You can and should learn from other's systems, but to perfect what you made yourself.

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